


do you hear those sleigh bells

by bottlefamebrewglory



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Christmas Party, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:52:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottlefamebrewglory/pseuds/bottlefamebrewglory
Summary: the first and only times severus snape attends the order christmas party





	do you hear those sleigh bells

**Author's Note:**

> _anonymous: i saw your post abt how the members of the order would interact with snape, and now i'm curious. what would have happened if snape had said yes when molly invited him over for christmas?_
> 
> got this ask on tumblr and honestly this was just going to be a bullet point drabble but it ended up getting out of hand, so it seemed easier to post it on ao3. set in the nebulous time after voldemort's first defeat, making snape somewhere around 21 years old (he was a BABY......). i think i mostly thought of it as the second or maybe third christmas after voldemort's defeat.

(Before the night, Arthur says, “Are you sure about this, dear?” in the tone of voice that politely _are you sure you aren’t out of your entire mind, dear?_ and Molly purses her mouth. “He’s too skinny,” she says. There’s more than one thing she means, but the most important one is _no one is feeding him anything, dear, and I don’t just mean food._ Arthur's been married to this open-hearted woman for long enough; he knows when he won’t change the course of her compassion.)

Snape comes to Christmas because Molly Weasley asked him and he hadn’t known how to say no. He doesn’t know what to do at a Christmas party. The only ones he’s ever been to are the paltry Hogwarts Christmas celebrations and one very awkward and uncomfortable Christmas spent with the Evans' family when he was 13, where Lily's mother looked at the black eye his father gave him and fed him too much turkey with a guilty cast to her face. Snape has some vague idea one is supposed to bring something, brought on by hearing so many stories from other Slytherins. He goes to the alcohol shop in Hogsmeade and spends twenty minutes waffling before buying the highest-end wine he can afford which is, unfortunately, still so cheap it scrapes the tongue going down.

The Order Christmas party used to be a hushed affair, rushed and heady because so many of them thought they were going to die soon. After Voldemort's defeat, it became something more stable. Hosting cycles among principal members and it is much more a way to spend time talking about the war and the horrific things they endured together, to revel in being alive. The year Snape goes, Molly is hosting. The Burrow is full of light and children and good food smells. Most everyone has already arrived. 

Snape came with Dumbledore and McGonagall. Dumbledore doesn’t always make it, but McGonagall does. She almost did a spit-take when Snape showed up in the Great Hall in his normal ragged black robes, a bottle of wine clenched tight in one hand, his expression daring her to say a word about his presence or the ribbon tying his hair back. (It’s the first and only time she sees him attempt to style his hair in any fashion.) Dumbledore, of course, just beams at him. (He’s not wearing robes. he’s wearing bright red leggings decorated with little reindeers with flashing noses and a green jumper Molly Weasley gave him with a giant D on it. He braided his beard with little snowflake charms. He has on cozy slippers with bells on them. Dumbledore absolutely knows how sick he looks.)

They come in through the front door without knocking. Molly comes to greet them. She is a hugger by nature, so she hugs Dumbledore (who returns it tenfold) and McGonagall (who gives her a gentle pat on the back) and turns to Snape. He has one brief moment to be certain of his doom before he’s dragged in. He stands stock still, deciding to treat this hug like meeting a bear in the wilderness; if he doesn’t move, perhaps he won’t be eaten. Molly gives him one last hard squeeze - snape doesn’t think anyone so plump has any right to be so strong - and lets him go. 

“For you,” Snape says and gives her the wine.

The thing is, Molly and Arthur are poor. They know what cheap wine looks like. They’re so familiar with it. and this is the cheapest you can buy, barely a step up from the stuff out of the box, but Molly takes it with a gracious smile and a “how sweet of you, dear” because a) she is probably a verified saint and b) she sees snape’s ragged robes and remembers how wan and hard he looked during the war and intuits exactly why Snape would give a gift like that to his hosts. She puts it with the other bottles of alcohol - some of them even approaching pricy, especially Dumbledore’s bottle of firewhiskey that she and Arthur will undoubtedly make last the entire year - and considers it good. 

Snape stands in the doorway of the Burrow and has no idea where to go. He’s put his outer robe away and he wishes he hadn’t, because he’s wearing a shirt that he’s had since he was 14 and pants that are just a little too short on him and he can feel the stares already, the ones that make silent jeers about how he can’t afford new clothes. Heat creeps up the back of his neck and everything goes a little hazy around the edges. He doesn’t really know these people - he only caught glimpses of them during the war and none of them cared about a turncoat Slytherin. Who is he supposed to talk to? He moves into the living room and just hovers in a corner, trying to decide what to do, caught between hating being alone like some kind of pariah and the sheer anxiety of approaching a group of people he barely knows to try and start a conversation about--what, really?

He tries to find Dumbledore. That’s someone he knows. When he can’t, he looks for McGonagall instead; they can argue about Quidditch like they do over breakfast and maybe Snape will feel less like someone is going to spring out and accuse him of being some kind of interloper. But she’s nowhere to be found either. Snape’s heart is beating so fast he’s surprised the whole room can’t hear it. Snakes twist in his stomach. He begins to feel like he is slowly becoming untethered from his own body, as if he's watching everything happen behind a thin veil. Oh, Merlin, he thinks. Not now. He turns and looks at the pictures on the wall behind him with focused interest, cataloging all the details of the Weasley children. Anything to keep people from realizing how much anxiety buzzes under his skin, making his fingers twitch and his heart jump. He just has to keep it together until this ridiculous party is over and then he can go home and relax in the darkness alone like he so badly wants to.

Snape is up to nine freckles on one of the middle children’s face when someone taps him on the shoulder. He startles badly, but it’s just Arthur Weasley. Snape stiffens. Arthur smiles, but the expression seems forced. Did he come here to tell Snape to go away? Did they finally realize that inviting him was a mistake?

“Dumbledore tells me you have some muggle family,” Arthur says.

“Unfortunately,” Snape says.

He knows it’s the wrong thing to say immediately. He didn’t mean it in the way he’s sure Arthur is going to take it - another ex-Death Eater Slytherin being prejudiced against muggles. It’s just. He hates his father entirely and utterly and would even if he were a wizard. Being related to him and his entire family is, without doubt, a stain on Snape’s life. The fact that they’re muggles is more a secondary issue to the fact that they are utter scum of the Earth.

But Snape’s hardly going to tell that to Arthur Weasley, no matter what face he makes. 

“Great inventors, muggles,” Arthur says. “I hear they’re doing marvelous things with those... what are they called, again? Compactors? Conditioners?”

It takes Snape several seconds to make the connection. “...Computers?”

Arthur snaps his fingers. “That’s it! Merlin, they really are inventive, aren’t they? First those felly-tones and now these computer whatsits. who knows what they’ll come up with next!”

Snape thinks Arthur is too easily impressed but bites his tongue so he doesn’t say so. “Assuredly.”

‘Assuredly’ is a Malfoyism. Lucius Malfoy once said that he used that word when he didn’t want to call whoever he was talking to stark raving mad for their opinion - it was positive enough, but noncommital, so it could sound like he was agreeing without really agreeing. Snape had used it with varying degrees of success over the years.

“Now, Snape, I was wondering if you could help an old fellow out." Snape would very much like to snap at him to go away, but despite what his housemates thought he wasn't actually raised in a barn. He bites his tongue and hopes his stare says the _fuck off_ for him. Arthur keeps talking, so apparently not. "You see, I know so few people who have any real insight into the muggle world and I’ve been dying to know... How exactly _does_ a toaster work, anyhow?”

Snape might actually be in hell. “I’m sorry?”

Arthur doesn’t even have the nerve to look embarrassed. “I mean, I’ve looked at them of course. even tried one out myself! But I can’t ever seem to understand the _mechanics_ behind them.”

“And you’re... asking _me_. To explain _toasters_. To you.”

Arthur beams at him. “Well, you’ve lived among them! You must be an expert, I expect. Who better to ask?”

If Snape had told his teenage self that anyone would consider him an expert on muggles in the future, he would have been horrified. He’s horrified now. but. Arthur is technically his host. His wife invited Snape to this horror show and Snape, for some godforsaken reason, decided to come. 

Oh, Merlin.

“First, one plugs the toaster in so that it can run on electricity,” Snape starts.

* * *

He explains toasters to Arthur for nearly twenty minutes, then spends the rest of the hour fumbling around an explanation for television. Snape himself knows very little of the mechanics behind it, but Arthur still asks so many questions and doesn’t seem to care that snape can only give answers that seem to make less sense the longer he speaks. They talk until Molly comes and calls everyone to dinner and Snape realizes as he slides into a seat near McGonagall that he didn’t have to think once about how awkward and alone he felt while he was talking to Arthur, even if he had been uncomfortable. The shaky disconnected feeling is mostly gone, even, though he still feels a little jittery.

It comes back during dinner, though. Snape eats and it’s delicious, but he’s never had that big of an appetite before and he finds that he can’t keep up with everyone who’s going back for a second helping. He watches the loaded plates incredulously. Is this how everyone eats on Christmas? 

He has no one to talk to again. Arthur is at the head of the table, McGonagall is deep in conversation with a witch snape doesn’t recognize, Dumbledore is nowhere to be seen. Snape stares at the mashed potatoes he’s been slowly crushing into nonexistence. The jittery feelings worsens to the point where he almost feels like he's ready to vibrate out of his skin. He retreats entirely into his head and tries to distract himself by thinking of the potions he needs to work on tomorrow. It doesn't really work, but it keeps him from bolting which is better than nothing.

* * *

Afterward, there are drinks and desserts. It isn’t until Molly begins herding everyone to the stubby Christmas tree that snape realizes there’s going to be _presents_. He freezes. For one wild moment, he considers making a runner for the door. 

He didn’t think about presents. He hasn’t bought presents for anyone since his mother passed away. But surely they won’t have some big to-do with so many people. Surely they are all adults and don’t care about presents anymore?

Snape watches with mounting disbelief as mountains of presents are exchanged. It seems like everyone gets something and Molly and Arthur are handing things out as if their lives depend on it. (Molly and Arthur didn’t buy the presents for the most part - they are handmade or hand-me-downs. Some of them were brought by Dumbledore earlier that month and added secretly to the tree when Molly wasn’t looking.) 

Snape tries to disappear into the wall. This is horrifying. Everyone has something and he will have--nothing. At least he’s used to nothing on Christmas. Even when his mother was alive, she couldn’t afford more than some battered secondhand books. Snape had learned young to leave behind the all-encompassing envy at the presents he’d see his housemates flaunt. They weren’t for him and Snape had, through bitter toil, made his peace with that.

But that didn't mean it doesn't sting, to be surrounded by people who care enough to find something and wrap it up and give it away and have nothing. Snape drinks deep of the firewhiskey Arthur pressed on him and focuses his stare on the twinkling lights on the stooped little Christmas tree and tries very hard to pretend he isn’t there at all. His vision blurs as he retreats into his head to return to the meandering thoughts he had about potions during dinner and that helps him breathe a little easier for a while.

“Severus!”

Snape jumps as a box is deposited in his hands. He stares at it. The wrapping paper is packed tight with rows of tiny meowing kittens wearing Santa hats. When he transfers his look to McGonagall, she doesn’t even have the nerve to look embarrassed. She simply raises her eyebrows.

“Am I your delivery boy now?” he asks. "Surely you can bestow this... precious gift onto its recipient yourself?"

The eyebrows go higher and McGonagall's mouth purses. Snape recognizes that look. It’s the one he’s tried to emulate more than once that says _are you absolutely sure you have anything between your ears, because right now I have an astounding amount of evidence that you do not._ Snape frowns at her and she frowns right back.

“It’s astonishing that someone can become a professor without learning to read, Severus,” she says in her tartest voice before flouncing away.

Snape glares at her back. She always has to get the last word, that one. And what did she mean, anyway? Of course he knows how to _read_. He looks back down at the present in irritation, then stops dead. The tag reads _To: Severus, From: Minerva_. He stares at it for a full minute, uncomprehending. 

“Oh, Minnie’s already gotten to you, has she!”

Dumbledore is twinkly-eyed and red-cheeked and obviously tipsy. At some point, someone put a red Santa hat on him. The tiny bell at the tip is warbling out a tinny version of _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer_. 

“Did you put her up to this?” Snape asks, which is a better question than _is this some kind of joke?_

“No one can put that old cat up to anything,” Dumbledore says fondly. “Though she did copy me, that minx. Here you are, my boy.”

Snape has asked Dumbledore more than once not to call him that, but he finds he can’t find his voice as another package is deposited into his arms. This one is wrapped in bright golden paper topped with a luxurious and ornate red bow. The tag simply reads Snape’s name. 

“You--” Snape chokes on the word, on the tight, complicated knot of feelings coiling in his stomach. He hasn't had more than one present in years. “Why--”

Dumbledore smiles. “Why wouldn’t we?” he asks. "Merry Christmas, my boy." He turns to vanish among the crowd.

Snape huddles his presents to his chest and waits. No one else descends upon him to bestow any unexpected gifts so he turns and finds the mostly empty kitchen. Molly Weasley stands at the countertop, carefully dividing out an enormous cake. She smiles cheerfully before Snape can make his escape.

“A bit of a noisy bunch, that lot,” she says. “Dessert will be ready soon, but you’re welcome to have a slice and a cup of coffee if you need.”

Snape hesitates. He doesn’t want to do this with an audience, but the Burrow is choked with people - he likely won’t find an empty spot for himself. And he burns to know. Out in the living room, he can hear the chatter and shrieks of the rest of the Order already opening their gifts. 

“If you don’t mind,” he says and sits at the long table.

The dishes have already been collected in a neat pile, some of them disappearing into the sink to be cleaned in a steady cycle. Snape places the presents on the table and considers them. McGonagall's is square and heavy. Snape would bet the only galleon he has that it’s a book. Dumbledore’s is the mystery - smaller and thinner, it could be anything.

“Are you going to open them, dear?”

Snape jumps and almost snarls. But Molly Weasley just offers him a gentle smile. She puts a plate of cake at his elbow and a cup of coffee.

“Go on, then. Presents are always exciting, no matter how old you get.”

Snape’s last Christmas gift had been several years ago, when he was 17. His mother gave him a waterlogged secondhand copy of _T_ _he Brothers Karamazov_ to replace the one his father had thrown away. She had inscribed it _to my son, Severus - may you know the sun is there, even when you cannot see it._ It sits on his bookshelf. He hasn’t been able to read it since she died.

He opens McGonagall's present first, carefully slicing off the tape. The wrapping paper is ludicrous, but he doesn’t rip or tear it, simply lifts it away once the tape has been taken care of and folds it neatly.

It _is_ a book. No stains, no water damage. Snape lifts it to his nose and sniffs. He opens and feels the crack of the spine. It’s _new_. 

A translation of Slytherin's journals. Snape has a battered copy he managed to snag from the Knockturn Alley book sale three winters ago, but half the pages are missing and it was printed thirty years ago. This one is the reprint from earlier in the year, with a foreword by the esteemed potions master Ludwig Nigellus and additional footnotes. It has a heavy leather cover. It feels so luxurious Snape can barely stand to hold it.

“Oh, that’s a lovely book. Minerva always gives the best presents.” Snape looks over to find Molly smiling at him. When he lifts his eyebrows at her, she shrugs. “She’s been using that kitty paper for about a decade or so, I think. No idea where she gets it from.”

Snape breathes out through his nose. Reluctantly, he puts the book aside and turns to Dumbledore’s gift. He examines it, but he can’t find any tape. Carefully, he tugs on the bow, but that does nothing. Snape frowns and reaches for his wand, sweeping over it in one flick. His mouth twitches when he finds a complicated ward with a keystone in the bow; slowly, he unwinds it, losing himself in the simple process of working a complex magical problem. Once the ward unlocks, the bow disintegrates and the paper winds up into the shape of a poinsettia flower before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

“That Dumbledore,” Molly says. “So flashy.”

Snape hears her as if he’s from the bottom of a lake. The paper disappeared to reveal a slim, open box. Inside is a simple framed photograph. The frame is dark wood, adorned with little knots and grooves. The picture is Lily Potter caught in the middle of laughter.

“Oh,” Molly says.

Snape comes back to himself, bristling. He turns the photo over forcefully and gathers his book. His heart thunders in his chest.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he says. 

“Wait, Severus--”

“I need to be getting back.”

“Severus, _wait_.”

A hand grabs his elbow. He pauses. Turns. 

He forgets sometimes that Molly isn't so much older than him. Ten years, maybe less. She has a bit of frosting on her cheek from where she was cutting the cake. For a long moment she frowns up at him. Snap braces himself for--fuck, he doesn't know what. A reprimand for caring still about a woman who hasn't been his friend for years, who probably hated him when she was alive. A woman he helped kill. His stomach roils. Why did Dumbledore give him that photo? To torment him with what he'd lost forever, thanks to his own stupidity?

"I wouldn't tell anyone your business, Severus," Molly said finally. "And if you really feel you need to leave so early, at least let me send something home with you. You're far too skinny."

"I don't need that, Mrs. Weasley."

"Molly, dear. And I insist. Come on, you wait by the door and get your things, I'll just get some of these leftovers wrapped up for you."

Snape is herded to the hallway and left to wait. He gathers his dark cloak and unshrinks the scarf he stowed away in its pocket--a ragged crotchety thing that he's had for nearly eight years now. He loops it around his neck and breathes deeply. He could just leave, he thinks. He probably will never come to another Christmas party again or see Molly Weasley outside of Hogwarts related business, so what would it matter if he just disappeared? But then he thinks about having to face Molly knowing he just ran away and he swallows. He can stay until he gets his food. It'll be fine.

"Oh, so this is where you've run off to."

Snape stiffens. Mad-Eye Moody leans against the doorway to the living room, arms crossed over his chest. Someone's put a reindeer headband on him, but it fails to make him look any less intimidating. His glass eye roves over Snape from head to toe. Snape's heard some disturbing rumors about that eye and he forces himself to stay still and calm under its scrutiny. 

"Thought you'd run off," Moody says conversationally.

"Not quite," Snape says in his frostiest voice. "Mrs. Weasley is intent on sending me home with leftovers."

To his surprise, Moody barks out a laugh. "I'm not surprised," he says. "Pretty sure we'll all have goody-bags to take home. Get anything good?" 

For a moment, Snape has no idea what he's talking about, but then he nods to the gifts still in Snape's arms. Heat rushes up Snape's back. Fuck, is the picture still covered? He checks and relaxes a little when he sees it is. It was bad enough that Molly got a glimpse, there's no way Snape wants someone like Mad-Eye Moody to know about his complicated feelings about Lily.

"A book," he says.

"That'd be McGonagall. She barely buys anything else." Moody raises his eyebrows. "Surprised she's buying them for you, though."

Snape bristles. "Oh?" he asks. "And, pray tell, why would that be?"

Moody barks out a laugh. "Oh, come off it. Dumbledore may have spoken for you, but everyone here knows it wasn't too long ago that you were laying down in bed with the likes of Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange."

"In case you've forgotten, I was only _in bed_ ," he sneers out the word as deeply as he can, "with them to get information for the Order."

"That's what Dumbledore would have us believe," Moody says. "And sure, some of the Order lapped it up like we were clearly meant to, Molly and Arthur included. But I know your type, Snape. Your kind doesn't change so easily."

Snape's grip tightens on his presents. Where is Molly? He just wants to leave. 

"You can think what you like," he says in his coldest voice. 

"I will," Moody says. "Just know that I'm watching you. You-Know-Who may be gone, but the war is far from over."

He tips his head. Snape sneers at him as he retreats back into the living room. It isn't until he's gone from sight that Snape allows himself to lean against the wall and close his eyes. He's shaking, he can feel it. Merlin. It's only by Dumbledore's generosity that he'd avoided Azkaban and it terrifies him to know that that rug could be pulled out from him at any minute and that vultures like Moody would be on him the second it was. That's not even thinking about all his old Death Eater contacts who expect him to keep in touch, to tout the word of their fallen Lord, to keep up the facade of a faithful servant. If he doesn't, then he loses everything too in a much more concrete way. It's a balancing act, keeping both sides from turning on him. 

He needs to be careful, so careful, and it's exhausting. 

"Here you are, then. Oh, my. Severus?"

Snape opens his eyes. Molly frowns at him, a heavy paper bag in one hand. He reaches out and takes it from her without a word. 

"Happy Christmas," he says. "Thank you for the invite."

"Happy Christmas," she echoes. "But, Severus--"

"I'll be going."

He thinks she's going to ask. But she only gives him one last, long stare, then smiles at him. Snape deliberately turns away. He doesn't like her smile. It's too warm and he doesn't deserve it.

"All right. Have a good holiday, Severus. You'll have to join us again next year."

He won't, he thinks, but he nods. He strides out the door, clutches the bag of food and the gifts to his chest and disapparates with a clean bang.

* * *

(Later, much later, he allows himself to look at the photo. Lily's older. She's wearing her hair long, which she never did in Hogwarts. She's caught in a loop of talking to whoever's taking the pictures and then beginning to laugh and laugh. Snape can barely stand to watch it for longer than a few minutes before he puts it away in a drawer where he can't see it. 

He doesn't ask Dumbledore about the photo and Dumbledore doesn't tell him. But sometimes, when the world is too big and his body is too small, he takes the photo out and watches, just for a few moments.)

**Author's Note:**

> anyway!!!!!!!!!! i made myself real sad.


End file.
